Philippines Solidarity
Network of Aotearoa detailed the horrific environmental
consequences arising from the March 1996 tailings dambust
at the Marcopper mine owned by Placer Dome of Canada on
Marinduque island in the Philippines. The following are
extracts from the May 13, 1998 issues of the PSNA
newsletter Kapatiran.

Graphic: Kapatiran, 13 May 1998

The most damning evidence of the
company's long term environmental abuse of Marinduque
comes from Dutch-Canadian anthropologist Catherine
Coumans, who did field research in Marinduque from 1988 to
1990. To mark the second anniversary of the far from
resolved disaster, she wrote:

'Studies Confirm
Placer Dome's Waste Poisons Marinduque'

'Soon, Marinduqueños will be facing
a terrible anniversary. It has been two years since a
badly sealed drainage tunnel collapsed spewing three to
four million tons of mine tailings into the 26- kilometre
long Boac river. The thick grey mine waste instantly
destroyed all life in the river and changed for years to
come the lives of some 20,700 villagers living along the
river and the nearby coast. Despite two years of promises
by Placer Dome Inc - the Canadian mining giant responsible
for the disaster - to clean up and restore the Boac river,
it is still a barren wasteland of tailings. Placer
Dome's own studies estimate that only one third, at
best, of the tailings are now, temporarily, under control
in a dredged channel at the mouth of the river. Most of
the tailings are still in and along the river bed, and
some have swept into the sea where corals and seagrasses
have been smothered.

'Even as Marinduqueños have been
reeling in the aftermath of the March 24, 1996 disaster, a
most amazing thing has been happening. As ever more
experts and scientists have poured into the island
province to study the disaster, they have produced an ever
growing pile of studies. The contents of these studies
have been nothing short of revelatory, Marinduqueños have
been receiving a crash course in environmental and health
hazards related to irresponsible mining. And, for the
first time in 30 years of mining by Placer Dome on the
island, light is finally being shed on the serious
environmental problems that Marinduqueños have reported
since the early 1970s. Reams of historical documents show
that in all those years Placer Dome's managers have
consistently told the people their problems were not
related to the mine. Now we know better. And now,
Marinduqueños have expert studies to back them up.

'It was the United Nations report of
1996 that first put the blame for the Boac disaster
squarely on the shoulders of the Placer Dome management of
the Marcopper mine. The report calls the use of a
mined-out pit as a tailings disposal site
"unconventional" and questions why necessary
risk assessments were not carried out adding, "it is
possible that had such risk assessment been carried out
then the present environmental disaster would not have
occurred".

'The UN report also explained for the
first time to Marinduqueños how the tailings in the river
could become highly toxic if left exposed to air and fresh
water, which causes them to oxidise, become acidic, and
leach trace metals into the environment; a process known
as Acid Mine Drainage. Placer Dome's own report admits
that since February 1997, this toxic process has started
in the exposed tailings in the Boac river.

'The UN report also focussed
attention on a waste rock siltation pond located in the
mountains at the top of the Boac river. The UN team noted
it was clearly leaking toxic acid drainage through a
breach in the dam wall, evidence that "environmental
management was not a high priority for Marcopper".
This revelation, in addition to the insight that the now
collapsed tunnel had been used to drain acidic water from
the Tapian mine pit into the Boac river since the early
1970s, finally explained regular "fishkills" in
the Boac river starting in the 1970s.

'With this knowledge, years of
similar inexplicable fish kills and foul river smells in
the neighbouring Mogpog river are also suddenly less
puzzling. There, atop the river, another highly acidic
waste rock siltation pond is situated behind a notoriously
inadequate and leaking dam wall. In 1993 this dam even
broke altogether flooding the Mogpog river and killing
fish.

'Finally, there is the tragedy of
Calancan Bay, where Placer Dome dumped some 200 million
tons of mine tailings via surface disposal into the
shallow, coral rich bay between 1975 and mid-1991. The
tailings now cover some 80 sq km of the bottom of the bay
and there is a five km long causeway of exposed tailings.
In all those years, and to this day, Placer Dome managers
are on record as vehemently denying that the fishermen,
who relied on the bay for their food and livelihood, were
damaged by the dumping. But now, once again, the expert
studies prove the fishermen right.

'Placer Dome has commissioned
numerous studies to assess the loss of livelihood from
fishing in the coastal areas affected by the Boac spill.
These reports clearly link turbidity, caused when tailings
enter the water, and smothered corals and seagrasses to
loss of livelihood from fishing. These studies also warn
of the dangers of toxic runoff from tailings left exposed
to the air, as tailings in Calancan Bay are.

'In 1997, tests conducted by the
Department of Health and medical doctors at the University
of the Philippines identified toxic levels of heavy metals
in the blood of villagers from Boac and Calancan Bay.
Mogpog villagers have not been tested yet. Health
Secretary Reodica reportedly said, "in the long run
if we continue to monitor we will find more cases".
Placer Dome has tried to cast aspersions on these findings
but in fact they confirm predictions made in Placer
Dome's own studies.

'To this day, and despite evidence
from expert studies, Placer Dome still refuses to take
responsibility for damages in Mogpog and Calancan Bay. It
is now up to the Philippine government to insist on
environmental rehabilitation and compensation for all
affected areas and people of Marinduque, using Placer
Dome's desire to open new mines in the country as
powerful leverage'. (Philippine Daily Inquirer,
March 7, 1998)

Widespread Opposition
to Mining TNCs

Lured by the criminally liberal 1995
Mining Act, mining transnationals (many of them
Australian) are pouring into the Philippines. Rio Tinto of
Britain, the world's biggest mining company, is muscling
into Mindanao. Newmont of the US wants to mine over one
third of the Cordillera.

But from one end of the Philippines to
the other, from the Cordillera to Panay, from Negros to
Mindanao, people are fighting the mining TNCs, with
tactics ranging from mass protest to court cases to
outright war. Filipinos, particularly the indigenous
tribal peoples most affected by mining, have no illusions
about the TNCs. Tactics are to the point - in October
1997, fisherfolk dumped rotten fish in front of the head
office of the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (DENR), in Quezon City. They were protesting the
fish kills and environmental degradation caused by that
Act. The Cordillera Peoples Alliance has vowed to fight
Newmont and Rio Tinto is encountering opposition in
Mindanao.

Nowhere is this invasion by mining
transnationals more ferociously resisted than in Mindanao,
where the notorious Australian company Western Mining
Corporation (WMC) has secured a 99,400 hectare concession
straddling several provinces. Throughout 1996, the
B'laan indigenous people were hounded from their
ancestral lands by military forces working on behalf of
WMC. A 1996 fact finding mission concluded that an
ethnocidal war was being waged against the B'laans,
under the guise of fighting the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF). Human rights abuses and atrocities were the
order of the day. The B'laans have fought back, firstly
by declaring war against WMC and backing that with
actions. Secondly, in February 1997, they filed a class
action suit in the Supreme Court, questioning the
constitutionality of the 1995 Mining Act.

The B'laan clearly understand what is
at stake and seek international help. In July and August
1997, Willy Gulaya and Juanito Malid undertook a speaking
tour of Australia rallying support for the B'laan. The
B'laan have highly motivated allies. In December 1996 an
international fact finding mission visited the B'laan
territory. One of them was Moses Havini, the Australian
representative of the Bougainville Interim Government.
Moses accompanied Willy and Juanito on their 1997
Australian tour. The Bougainvilleans have waged an armed
struggle against both Rio Tinto and the Papua New Guinea
military for nearly a decade. Moses could clearly see the
parallels. [See Kasama Vol.11 No.3.]

The Catholic Church has come out
strongly against the Act. Zamboanga bishops said:
"Our land is being offered to foreign owned companies
with liberal conditions, while our people continue to grow
in poverty Filipinos will become surface dwellers in
our own country, with foreign companies owning our lands,
trees, minerals and water rights " (Today,
21/11/97). Bishop Jose Manguiran took it further and
publicly threw away a plaque of commendation he had
received from DENR. In February 1998, the Catholic Bishops
Conference called for the Act to be repealed and all
mining permits to TNCs to be recalled. [See front page
of this issue of Kasama  Eds.]

The battle lines are drawn throughout
the country  the people versus rapacious TNCs and an
accommodating Government which uses the military to clear
the way for the miners. It's in the Third World that we
see the real face of the TNCs, a face of greed backed by
violence. But the people of the Philippines are equal to
the task of fighting for their land and environment. What
they need from the outside world is support.